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Verb Usage Problems

Subjunctive Mood

Subjunctive Mood

Remember, this is used for hypotheticals and things that are not true OR strong recommendations.

For falsehoods

I were

you were

he, she, it were

we were

you were

they were

Other verbs may drop the "s" in singular verbs.

Conjugation

For strong suggestions

I be

you be

he, she, it be

we be

you be

they be

Falsehoods

I wish we were superheroes.

He acts as if he were the boss.

Suppose they were right; it still wouldn't matter.

Examples

Strong suggestions

I recommend that they be given cookies.

The judge ordered that he be remanded on bail.

They demanded that we be removed.

"Lie" means "to recline." "Lay" means "to place."

Lay/Lie

infinitive

past tense

past participle

05

to lie

to lay

lay

laid

lain

laid

04

03

Conjugation

The leaf lay on the ground.

The breeze laid the leaf at my feet.

02

01

Note: "to lie" is intransitive and "to lay" is transitive.

Dangling Modifiers

These come in different flavours, but dangling participles are the most notorious.

Flickering eerily, Steve turned to look at the lightbulb.

People do not flicker. Participles can only move around if they modify the subject.

Alexei went to answer the phone running eagerly.

Displaced participles modifying a subject need a comma.

Examples

Conceptually speaking, infinitives are one word.

Split Infinitives

To give is better than to receive.

So don't interrupt them with adverbs.

We want to dramatically increase funding.

So?

We want to increase funding dramatically.

Parallelism is when all items in a list have the same grammatical structure. That's good!

Parallelism

Eat ice cream, flowers should be smelled, and be happy.

Examples

Eat ice cream, smell the flowers, and be happy.

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